


A Study of Getting What You Want

by scrared



Series: dream smp drabbles [2]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I'm so sorry, L'Manberg | L'Manburg on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), L'Manhole more like lol, The Disc War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29537319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrared/pseuds/scrared
Summary: Tommy knew he had finally won. He had defeated Dream, he had his discs, everything was ok.But at the same time, he knew Dream had won. He destroyed L'Manburg, he brought everyone together again.They both got what they wanted in the end, huh.
Series: dream smp drabbles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2164821
Kudos: 1





	A Study of Getting What You Want

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: this is based off the characters from the dream smp roleplay and not the real life people, if anyone featured in this fic says that theyre uncomfortable with fanfic then I'll take it down, enjoy your stay, sorry if it sucks

The shadows felt more solid that night.

They bled into the ground like tears, gently smothering the burning world. From where he stood slouched over at the craters’ edge, Tommy could make out the dark outline of bedrock creeping out from the pale stone. With the sun setting, the shadows stretched out, twisting and contorting themselves into shapes he didn’t know was possible. Shapes he wished weren’t possible.

The darkness seemed almost to be claiming back the ruins of L’Manburg as the sun fell, reaching out and taking it into their own hands. All that history, all those memories, all that pain – it was reduced to nothing. Less than nothing, even – even the ground that had stood underneath it was gone. Everything that was there even before L’Manburg – gone, nothing but ashes and memories blowing on a non-existent wind.

The bottom of the crater slowly disappeared as time stole the sun away from him slowly, snatching the light from his vision. Gradually the bedrock was claimed to the darkness, too far away for his eyes to see. Looking down made him feel sick – the crater he used to call home, the nothingness that reminded him of all the somethings it used to stand for. There was a hole where his home used to be, and it was just as much inside of him as it was scarred into the ground in front of him.

Looking up was almost worse, though. The obsidian grid lurked in the sky like a dark reminder – like Dream was standing there himself, yelling at Tommy and telling him how futile everything was, how pointless it had all been. If anything represented the end of the world, it was that. Pitch black against the darkening sky, forcing more shadows into a world already saturated with darkness.

The furious crash of water reverberated around the crater, amplifying itself until it was all he could hear. It was its own music, in a way – a steady song, a certain kind of alluring stillness even within the roaring thunder that was created as the water hit the cold stone with a vengeance Tommy wished he didn’t understand.

He could feel it splashing at his skin with a surprising gentleness. It didn’t feel cold to him. Not anymore. Once, he would have been annoyed at the steady spray of ice-cold water against his clothes, against his skin. Now, it was comforting. Not in a cuddly, warm, children-playing-in-rivers kind of way. Rather that it was a physical reminder that he wasn’t burning – the sharp numbness of the water a tether, an indication that he wasn’t on fire, nothing was burning, nothing was blowing up with that unearthly heat he had come to know far too well.

L’Manburg was gone, now. It had been gone for a week and yet it was only really hitting him now. All that history, all that pain, everything he had fought for. Lost for. 

Wilbur’s legacy – gone, like that. What he gave his first two lives for – gone. What he and Tubbo had helped to build from the ground up – nothing was left, now. He had given so much, so fucking much, to L’Manburg, and now there was nothing but the smell of ashes filling the sky.

He knew that L’Manburg had its issues, of course he did. But it was home. Not just home, actually, because it meant more than that to him. Through the corruption and the power play and the fighting and all of that, L’Manburg had meant more to him than words could ever describe.

L’Manburg was Wilbur excitedly showing him the camarvan, a wild grin on his face as he spun promises of a better future from threads he had made by himself. L’Manburg was banding together with people who were fed up of living under someone elses rule. It was the walls, a protective shielding against the tyranny they could never control. 

L’Manburg was being betrayed, losing the very first lives on the sever, and deciding that it was still worth fighting for anyway. It was gambling his second life, it was choosing to give up the disc he had spent months fighting for. It was winning – winning through losing, but still, it was winning – and it was the grin on everyones faces as they realised that they didn’t have to fight anymore.

Then it was losing – losing the people, losing the election, losing their home – and deciding that yeah, it wasn’t what they had built, but it was still worth coming back to. Still worth fighting for. L’Manburg was Pogtopia, too – it was the places they had built as they waited to take it back, it was allies and it was betrayal and it was losing everything and it was keeping on fighting anyway.

It was being exiled, it was losing all of his friends, it was desperately clinging onto everything it used to be. Everything it used to represent.

Life. Liberty. The pursuit of victory.

But hey, he thought bitterly. At least you have the discs now.

The discs. The fucking discs.

The entire time – right from the start of the server, back when he had no one but Tubbo, back before Dream had become something akin to god, back before he had even seen an explosion.

The discs had become everything to him. That probably wasn’t a good thing, but he had spent so long fighting for them that even if they had meant nothing to him at the start, they’d have meant more than words could describe now. 

But they hadn’t meant nothing at the start, and that was the issue. They had meant a whole lot of something right from the start, and with every battle he fought, they meant more and more. Maybe if he’d let them go right at the start, none of this would have happened. Or maybe it would have happened anyway, and the decisions he made had never affected the outcome.

Either way, he knows that he would never have given up the discs like that. Not for the same reasons Dream refused to let them go, but still. He would never have given them up, not even back before he had fought wars for them, not even before he had suffered for them.

Back when he got the discs, he had nothing. The discs were the first thing he had on this server that had meant something. They were the first thing that gave him stability, they were the first thing that made him feel like he had achieved something. He wouldn’t have given up that feeling for the world. Not back then.

That was the thing with the discs. To Dream, they had meant power, they had meant control, they had meant a powerful bargaining chip, an important piece in his convoluted game of chess. To Tommy, they were just discs – just something he loved enough to fight for. Just a piece of music, something for him to stand by.

To Tommy, the discs had never meant power. At some point they had started meaning something to fight for, but even then they had still been nothing but discs. Nothing but something he loved.

He supposed Dream was right when he said that the discs were his weakness, that attachments were weaknesses. In anyone’s hands but his own, they were something that could be used against him, something he couldn’t control. 

He looked over the empty ruins, the sun now almost completely sunk beneath the horizon. In hindsight, that was what L’Manburg had been to Dream, in a way. The people of L’Manburg – what, right from the start, had made L’Manburg what it was – hadn’t been anything under control of the Dream SMP, under control of Dream. But the moment they became something different, the moment they wrenched themselves out of Dreams possession, they had become powerful. 

They had become something Dream couldn’t control, something that could be used against him. In a way, L’Manburg was Dreams discs. As long as Dream had controlled them, L’Manburg had meant nothing. The minute someone else controlled L’Manburg, it became a threat to him. 

The L’Manburg was to Dream what the discs were to Tommy.

Tommy supposes that if that was the case, it didn’t really matter how much he had fought for the discs. Dream was never going to let L’Manburg be free, in the same way Tommy was never going to let go of the discs without a fight.

The worst part was that they had both won, in the end. They both got what they were after the whole time, they both won their respective battles. Tommy got his discs back and Dream destroyed L’Manburg once and for all.

He laughed bitterly, kicking a loose rock into the chasm beneath him. They both won, huh. They both got what they wanted in the end. 

But was it worth it?

Did either of them think it was worth it?

Tommy got his discs back, sure, but he lost L’Manburg. Everything Wilbur had built before he was lost to borderline insanity, now just piles of ashes and memories. It was painfully ironic – L’Manburg had been the one thing he had ever prioritised over his discs. Twice, actually.

He had given up a disc for L’Manburg’s independence, and then told Tubbo to give Dream the disc to save L’Manburg from getting walled up all over again. 

Of course, that had definitely been poor decision making on their part, but still. It’s the thought that counts, surely?

L’Manburg was the one thing he had ever given his discs up for. Well. He had never given them up, not really. He’d always kept fighting for them back, but now here he was. He had his discs, but was it worth losing L’Manburg for?

It made sense, in a convoluted kind of way, that he only got the discs back once he lost L’Manburg. Maybe that was it all along – to keep his discs he had to lose L’Manburg. He could only ever have one or the other. To gain the discs back, he had to lose the one thing he was ever willing to lose the discs for.

Then there was Dream – Dream, who had destroyed L’Manburg. Who had achieved his goal. Who had destroyed L’Manburg all the way down to bedrock, who had ensured they would never rise again. Would he think it was worth it?

Did he think that destroying L’Manburg, that forcing them back into the Dream SMP, was worth losing literally everything else for?

Dream had said he lost all his attachments – his friends, his horse, everything – to become powerful, to become a god. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? He had L’Manburg, and he had Tommy. He won the fight for L’Manburg by destroying it completely, and would have won over Tommy by putting him in the prison he was now sitting in himself. 

Dream destroyed L’Manburg, sure, but wasn’t the whole point of that to unite the SMP again? To bring them all back under his control, as one big family? 

But destroying L’Manburg had led to Dream being put in prison, and now everything was more divided than it had ever been before. Not that Tommy thought that was bad, of course – everyone was finally free to do what they want, to be who they want. No longer moved around like pieces on a chess board. 

But for Dream – well, for Dream, it was the opposite of his goal. Dream won L’Manburg, but he lost the entire SMP.

They both got what they wanted, but did either of them think it was worth it?

Get the discs, lose L’Manburg. Get L’Manburg, lose everything else.

He sighed, turning around and heading back to his house, where Tubbo was already waiting for him at their bench, having watched the sun set over this new world. This was their world, now. 

Was it worth it?

He supposed he’d have to stick around to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos to my idiot for knowing how to word, I almost forgot what the word for water was whilst writing this


End file.
